Games 1 & 2 vs Dodgers in Japan

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Games 1 & 2 vs Dodgers in Japan

What a cool all around experience for baseball. Playing in the Tokyo Series was great for the Cubs. The MLB wanted two premier franchises on display and it lead to an average attendance of 42,000 fans and an early morning for most Cubs fans. 

Other than watching the struggles of the Cubs the hardest part was waking for the games. 4:10 am CT/ 5:10 am ET... yikes. I can proudly say I was up and at 'em for both. With that being said the losses hurt even worse. As Cubs fans had to watch a loss before even heading into work! 

The first four innings of game one were great from Shota. He went four hitless and had two strikeouts. He was pulled early and Skipper, Craig Counsell is quoted saying "It's 100% about taking of Shota, its not fun to do, but when you're prioritizing a players' health, you don't know what is going to happen moving forward and we want him to stay healthy"

Staying on the topic of pitching, between the two games the Cubs staff did not look great. As mentioned Shota looked promising, Ben Brown looked like there is upside to his arm with 5 Ks in 2.2 innings pitched and even getting one against Shohei Ohtani... the rest of the pitching staff struggled. Over the course of the two games we saw 10 guys take the mound, the Cubs walked 15 batters, and the combination of Porter Hodge and Ryan Pressly could not find the strike zone. 

On the offensive side of these two games the Cubs could not put runs on the board. I will start with the positive side. Jon Berti had the best plate appearances from the Cubs in Tokyo, between the two games he went 3-6 and had stolen bases. The problem here is that when Nico Hoerner returns from injury, Berti will not be the second basemen. The Cubs need to find someone quickly to tag along with Berti in the hitting department when they return to regular season play, such as Dansby Swanson or Ian Happ who we saw have a couple hits over the series. 

If Jon Berti going 3-6 excited you, sorry to tell you but it's all south from here. I'll start with the fact that the Cubs struck out 21 times over the course of the two games. And my gosh did Pete Crow-Armstrong look awful at the plate. PCA was extremely aggressive at the plate and it did him no favors. He ended the Toyko Series 0-7 with 3 Ks. Here's the worst part, he saw 29 pitches and swung at 22 of them. He needs to quickly turn back to what he was doing late in the season last year at the plate, because when he is on base, he is one of the most electrifying players to watch. 

I understand this is probably an overreaction and the Cubs will be fine going back into regular season play Thursday against the Diamondbacks, but you can't help but worry when you have so much time in between. As of now the Cubs are still the favors to win the NL Central, but the championship odds have dropped to +3000.

We will be back at it Thursday as the Cubs take on Arizona 9:10 CT, hopefully with more excitement and positive comments. Go Cubs Go. Play The Song!